NEWSFLASH - Auction has been extended!

Anyone watching and participating in the latest Sedo auction will have seen that there were a few hitches. So many people visited the Sedo site that their server went down for the first time in history.

The auction is now back on and has been extended - remaining time is just over and hour and a half as I write.

Sedo and dotMobi are working hard to inform all participants - please help us spread the word and revisit the site!

Comments

[Robert]

Is it true 1 person bought these domains?

GAMES.MOBI
MOVIES.MOBI
MUSIC.MOBI
PHOTOS.MOBI
SPORTS.MOBI
VIDEOS.MOBI

This alleged buyer adds,
"I am not planning on developing these names, I am planing on selling these sometime in the near future, because I am focusing in Clics.com.. :-) I am already getting emails with offers, for the group and as single. :-)))"

Here is his blog...

http://alvaroalbarracin.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-am-acquiring-very-best-mobi-names.html

Aren't there development requirements? Is he exempt?

[Anand Reddy]

I am totally disappointed by the unfair and unethical manner in which the third sedo dotmobi auctions were held yesterday. The auction was loaded with interruptions and slowdowns. If they had decided to extend the auction they should have mailed us immediately. They took their own sweet time and sent an email after a couple of hours and intimated that the auction is extended by an hour from the time that I had received the mail. The worst part is that I could not even participate in the extended aucton as I was totally unaware of the extension, until after the completion of the extended auction. I do not blame myself for not checking my mailbox, two hours after the auction was initially concluded, given that it was midnight and was the time to retire to bed in Asia. We were not even aware that we had lost the sites that were initially awarded to us before the extension, until early in the morning. I blame the sedo officials for not bothering to call or SMS and ensure that every participant in the auction gets the message of extension of their auction before proceeding further with their unexpected extension.

[Fred]

This needs to be addressed properly. Still no response from Mtld and Sedo. That's bad imo. See this MTLD TEAM:
http://www.conceptualist.com/2007/12/06/yet-just-another-day-more-trouble-in-dotmobi-land/

I bid $611,000 for music.mobi - Lawsuit Pending
Hello everyone,

I have been a part of this SEDO .mobi auction auction and I am the one responsible for the bid $611,000 for music.mobi.

However I stopped bidding at the point where I realised that the NEW auction was a scam because the two bidders that were bidding me up were NEW bidders who were not even involved in the initial auction.

The initial auction closed with me winning the last bid at $66,000.

I received an invoice and 2 emails regarding the winning bid.

Let me ask everything this key question? If you are bidding on eBay and you have a 7 day auction and you take a chance and wait til the last second to bid what if your DSL line or connection or even your computer crashes? I think many of us had this experience in the past. I know I had this happen last week on eBay when my computer froze and in essence lost the bid. Did eBay care? NO! Does SEDO care if you WERE going to bid and failed to do so if your computer crashed or had a slow connection? NO! Well, wait a second in this case they do.

They proclaimed me winner send me 2 emails, sent me an invoice. I considered the bid finished and was ready to go and play guitar and record this new song I was working on in the studio. By chance, I get an email by whom? BOTH the .mobi MTLD who started INVITING people via a bulk message hyping them up that the servers have crashed and that there is huge demand for the .mobi auction. Then Sedo followed. So 2 bulk messages sent to the world inviting them to attend a NEW auction. Not only that, they extended the auction to 2.5 hrs NOT 5 minutes.

Anyhow, I seriously have been negotiating with .mobi since 2006 about music.mobi but they seem to want money and to rob everyone of money than have someone develop a super site like I am. So the whole RFP was bogus. I tried fir over a year and they just said "you will have to bid for it".

So, I am really upset, they caused me to miss my jam session and on top of that they allowed NEW bidders to the new auction. I say I have NO PROBLEM with old bidders that were active in the original auction bidding their maximum. Even though I was invoiced $66,000 I emailed SEDO and MTLD letting them know that I would pay them $81,000 because bidder 9 (I was the last bidder 12 to bid for the name in the original auction) rebid his maximum at $80k.

So there comes along NEW bidders 13 and 14 who did not even attend the initial, legal auction. They probably got the bulk email fro both SEDO and MTLD and invited themselves to the dance. HOW can an auction that has ended have NEW bidders? I have no problems bidding with the 12 bidders that have bid against me in the initial auction but NEW bidders who were enticed by HYPE emails? Have you ever heard of a closed auction then an hour later having a new bidder say I will outbid the winner even though i was not even in the auction? NO!

Anyhow, the bid to $616,000 is illegal. I sent the MTLD and SEDO an email and let them know that they should retract all my bids ($611,000) that were automatically placed by SEDO as a result of NEW bidders who were not even active in the original auction. In the new auction, the only legal bidder was bidder 9 who was also in the original auction. The bidder bid for $80k and i outbid him.

How can I be declared a winner then told that I am not the winner then they invite new bidders? Also how can they say that their terms of services states that they can redo the auction and there is no legal agreement? REALLY? I checked it and i saw no section that related to servers crashing and technology interruptions.Tough luck, you had 7 days to bid and you didnt. You cant be bidding after. You take a chance, then be brave enough to live by it and acknowledge that you had considerable time to bid. And the new bidders 13 and 14 and dont care who you are but you had no place bidding in an auction with the old active bidders.

Sedo I have bought numerous domains for tens of thousands of dollars and I refuse to park them and make money off parking (Domain King you can do that and **** the internet up for all of us). I will NEVER do business again with thieves especially the MTLD. They are making bank and playing everyone.

OK my story is not done yet. I stop bidding at $611k because in my mind I should not be bidding against NEW bidders (yes I did realise it at the end) who had no place in the auction since they did not attend the original one. So i stop and half an hour later I get a message from SEDO asking me if I was interested to buy mp3s.mobi for $500,000? So let me get this straight. because I bid up to $611,000 (yes I am retracting this bid and every other bid made against NEW, illegal bidders), does that mean you think I should buy another music domain? I told them I would not buy mp3s.mobi for $300 and basically told them that they will hear from my lawyers if this mess is not solved.

I suggest a class lawsuit and I seriously will BOYCOTT both SEDO and MTLD. I loved SEDO and have been a client for years but this money hungry, sleazy, unethical tactics are unacceptable. For all of you complaining that you did not get a bid in the last 5 minutes tough luck, you had 7 days (considerable time that is). I took a chance and won. I would have bid higher but I am not going to fill SEDO and MTLD's pockets with my hard earned money because they screwed up royally.

What can I say? I am ready to kick some serious butt here. And sue these guys for emotional distress. SEDO seriously, you lost one of your top clients and super domainers. Lost my respect and you have robbed me and others in all fairness. I seriously will NOT let this go. If justice is not served, I will sue, I will go to the press, I will tell my story, I will post all the emails I got, invoices and screenshots of my winning bid and I am sure it will reflect future SEDO=MOBI auctions. Did anyone say sex.mobi? Yes, the MTLD is greedy and so is SEDO. This is bad business. REALLY bad. Not sure I can trust them. i will not be surprised if Bidder 13 and 14 were internal just to bid up my proxy of $611,000.

The world record is not real people. It would have been if other original bidders bid me up to $615k. The new bidders in my mind either are internal fake bidders or new, illegal bidders who came in after being sent bulk emails by both SEDO/MTLD full of hype.

If they do not accept my winning auction and fair win versus the original bidders even in the new auction, then I WILL pursue this since I do have some spare change here now.

Costa

MusicMusic.com
Music.us
Music.pro
Music.im
Music.fm
MP3.fm

Blog: Entrepreneur.pro

PS After 3 years of development, I will be launching the biggest music site in the beginning of 2008, so if anyone knows any bands who would be interested, let them know to sign up their email at music.us. So much for the .mobi implementation on my site.
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[Caroline Greer]

Thanks for the comments received on the auction.

To respond to some of the queries raised - firstly, we are unable to comment on the identities of bidders without their explicit consent. They are Sedo's cutomers.

Secondly, I can confirm that there are development requirements for the winning bidders and any subsequent buyers of the auction domains. dotMobi's auction Ts and Cs are still available at http://premiumauction.mobi if you wish to review.

Finally, because mTLD does not control and cannot be responsible for the manner in which Sedo conducts its auctions, any auction concerns are properly addressed to Sedo. However, the decision to extend the auction was taken so as to be fair to those bidders who tried to place bids in the final minutes and failed because the servers were down.

Hope this helps.

[Jim]

OUCH- coming from someone that has several dotmobis and have been a supporter of this ext.from day one, this really has me scratching my head in what I witnessed first hand yesterday.

I just visited music.us after reading what the owner has gone through to acquire music.mobi and what he had in mind for development. Over 4 million visitors A MONTH going to his site that would of been introduced to the .mobi brand and actively helped build this ext. in a Major Way. Instead it gets acquired by someone that has publicly acknowledged he bought the Best names for the sole purpose to sell them and NO PLANS for developing? and if he chooses to keep them longer then 6 months, (as per agreement) I can only imagine what these site may look like.

One of the things that first drew me to this ext. was the fact that Mtld holds all the good cards in the deck and they were going to go through the so called RFD ? process to make sure the BEST names were awarded to the people/companies that had the best development ideas for these great names. It wasn't about the MONEY but was about helping to make this the Best Mobile ext. FIRST.

What happened to getting these names into the hands of genuine developers? and out of the hands of people that could (and ultimately did) get these names for the sake of the almighty dollar?

It's very disappointing to say the least that Mtld did not stand by what you originally had in mind for these names and sold out for the sake of a quick buck instead.

IMO it wasn't your fault for what happened in reguards to the fiasco yesterday, and it looks like SEDO will have several suits filed against them from what I have been reading this morning. BUT it was you that let these great names go that IMO should of never been in there in the first place.

[Caroline Greer]

Thanks Jim.

As stated many times on this blog and elsewhere, we were always upfront about the fact that our premium names were to be allocated via RFP and auction. Two allocation methods, two different ways of doing things.
Neither process has been killed off and both will be used going forward.

[Tovia Singer]

Bonjour/ Hi all

I have been very occupied with receiving bids for my dot mobis, however i have found that the sedo auction has to be fare to both teh seller as well as the buyer, now the sellers in this case being dot mobi themselves are doing a greta job, its the sedo people who are responsible for any mishaps or mis communication, whihc is typical and expected of any online auctioning personal.

So dont direct anger towards dot mobi, sedo are responsible, mor ethan dot mobi, but we must all get along, and get ready for the mobile future, web based mobiles will be bigger than pockedt pcs as mobiles are more common, chpear to manufacturer , build and lighter and easier to carry around, and easier to use fo rth all walks of life.

good luck with all your dot mobis and happy hunting

aurevoir

Tovia S

[JETTRAY]

Fantastic news for all of us who have been standing by .mobi from the start.After buying 3ooo .mobi names we are very happy to see this happen.
Does anyone want Freeinformation.mobi?
Cheers to .MOBI from the beach boys here in Los Angeles!!!!Big Wednesday it was for sure,History was made in the mobile internet world.Surf was really up!